1

Some Aspects of the Development of Christian Orthodox Art

in the 16th and 17th Centuries: the Testimony of Church

Inscriptions and Artists’ Signatures

by Emmanuel Moutafov1

Back at the end of the 15th century the Sultan Mehmed II conferred on the Patriarch of

Constantinople Gennadius Scholarios the right to represent all Christians subjected to the

Sublime Porte. Thus the Ecumenical Throne became the only legitimate Orthodox institution

within the Empire. To an extent the Patriarchate of Constantinople, with the Ottomans’ help,

gained for the first time independence from political power as well as control over the old

autonomous Slavic churches, which had been unthinkable prior to the 15th c. This was marked

in a peculiar manner when in 1526 Ioannes, a tailor from Ioannina, was tortured and burnt by

the Ottomans in Istanbul, thus becoming the first new martyr of the transformed Byzantine

Church. The cult towards him immediately spread throughout the empire and gave rise to a

multitude of new martyrs, strengthening the influence of the Greek Patriarchate. Thirty years

later the Patriarch Joassaph founded in the Ottoman capital a priest school, thanks to the

financial support from Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, with which the Greeks filled both the

religious and the education gap in Orthodoxy at the time. During the second half of the 16th c.

small parish schools also operated in Athens, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, the islands of Chios and

Patmos, etc. In 1577 a Greek college was founded in Rome as an attempt to attract the

Sultan’s subjects to Catholicism, but also as recognition for the prestige of the Greek element

and the Greek language in Orthodoxy, which was why the college was equipped with a

printing press and the Holy Bible was translated into the common Greek language. The

Constantinopolitan Patriarch Jeremiah II appointed the Moscow bishop Job for patriarch in

1589 as token of the support provided for preserving Orthodoxy within the Ottoman Empire.

In fact Russia remained the only sustainer of Orthodoxy during the period of the Ottoman

rule, because the Trans-Danubian principalities were subjected to the Sultan but kept only

1 Dr. Emmanuel S. Moutafov is an Associate Professor and a scientific secretary of the Institute of Art Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, as well as a member of the General Assembly of the same Academy. He is

a Hellenist, Byzantinist and works in the fields of Greek epigraphy and paleography, Orthodox iconography,

painter’s manuals and comparative Balkan Studies.

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their internal governance. Therefore various Moldowallachian rulers were founders or donors

of churches on Mount Athos. This fact determines the tolerant attitude of the Greek clergy to

the ministry and writing in Church Slavonic in the first centuries of the Ottoman occupation

on the Balkans. In some areas, however, the Phanariot policy replaced it by stimulating the

creation of a local literary tradition, as it has happened in the lands of present-day Romania

from the 17th century onwards2.

Before it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1669, the island of Crete was also a

powerful artistic centre. Between 1453-1526, the existence of 120 painters in Heraklion was

documented. They painted mostly icons, adhering either to the strict Byzantine tradition, or to

the Maniera Italiana. Urban centers in the Balkans did not have such conditions because the

Ottomans imposed restrictions on the construction of new churches and short deadlines for

repair works on the old temples. Exceptions were some urban centers such as Ioannina (until

1611) and Athens, where due to certain privileges for the local population greater construction

took place in the 16th century.

Thus the centres of artistic activity naturally became monasteries where monumental

art and architecture developed following the medieval patterns. Representatives of the so-

called Art school of Castoria from the late 15th and the early 16th c. worked on the old

katholikon of the Transfiguration monastery in Meteora3, on the St. Nikita church, in the

village of Chucher (ill. 1), etc.4 Donors and founders were mostly representatives of the high

clergy. The Voevods of Moldowallachia and Russian tsars were supporters of the canon and

tradition and they donated funds for the decoration of churches mostly in the Holy Mountain5.

2 Until the beginning of the 17th century the documents related to Romanian lands and preserved in the archive of the Xeropotamou monastery in Mount Athos, were in Church Slavonic, later on documents in Romanian became

more and more numerous. See Μαρινέσκου, Φ. Ρουμανικά έγγραφα του Αγίου Όρους. Αρχείο Ιεράς Μονής

Ξηροποτάμου. τ. Α΄, Αθήνα, 1997. 3 Chatzidakis, M. Recherches sur le peinre Théophane le Crétois. – In: Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23/24, Washington DC, 1969-1970, ill. 132. 4 Св. Радоjичић, Jeдна сликарска школа из друге половине ХV века. – В: Св. Радоjичић, Одабрани чланци

и студиjе (1933 – 1978). Београд,1982, 258 – 279 (препечатано от ЗЛУ, 1, 1965, 69-139); M. Chatzidakis,

Aspects de la peinture religeuse dans les Balkans (1300-1550). – In: M. Chatzidakis, Etudes sur la peinture

postbyzantine. London, 1976, 177-197; Ε. Γεωργιτσoγιάννη, Ένα εργαστήριο ανωνύμων του δεύτερου μισού του

15ου αιώνα στα Βαλκάνια και η επίδρασή του στη μεταβυζαντινή τέχνη. – In: Ηπειρωτικά χρονικά, 29, 1988-1989,

145-172; V. Popovska-Korobar, The Icone of Jesus Christ The Savior and the question of continuity of Ohrid

painting school from the XVth c. – In: Изкуство/Аrt in Bulgaria, 33-34, 1996, 34-38; Г. Суботић, Костурска

сликарска школа. Наслеђе и образовање домаћих радионица. Глас САНУ, СССLXXXIV, Одељење

историјских наука, кн.10, 1998, 109-139, etc. 5 For instance the Wallachian chieftain Mihea II donated the Plubuita monastery to Xeropotamou in Mount

Athos in 1585 Μαρινέσκου, Φ. Op. cit., 78-79.

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1. Detail of the mural decoration at the St. Niketas’ church in Cucer village,

FYROM, 15th century.

The Fall of Constantinople in Ottoman hands was an event that stained European

culture and shifted its balance, which naturally had an impact on art in Mount Athos. From

the 16th century on the Athonite monasteries, unprepared for such burden, would replace the

Constantinopolitan centers as leaders because they were granted a special status and

privileges in the Ottoman legislation. On the other hand, their main patrons and donors

became the rulers on the other side of the Danube because the dynasties of Byzantine rulers in

Constantinople were wiped out. These two factors became fundamental to the design of the

new monumental painting in the most important spiritual center of Orthodoxy – Athos – and

this would reflect on the art across the Balkans because of the undeniable theological

authority of the ascetic and monastic peninsula. The frescoes from the refectory of the

Xenophontos monastery have been preserved since the late 15th century. The painting of the

first layer of the decoration of the old katholikon of this monastery can be attributed to the

same workshop. An image of the Dormition of the Virgin Mary has survived as well. It is

located at the entrance of the Protaton church from 1511-1512, where all the stylistic features

later typical for the so-called Cretan School, named after the origins of its two most renowned

representatives6, were already present.

Also noteworthy is the fact that a little before the appearance of Theophanes the

Cretan, a painting workshop functioned on the monastic peninsula, transferring through its

6 Τουτός, Ν., Γ. Φουστέρης, Ευρετήριον της μνημειακής ζωγραφικής του Αγίου Όρους 10ος – 17ος αιώνας.

Αθήνα, 2010, σ. 21.

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brushes entirely different traditions and perception of the world. Its work included the

frescoes in the St. John the Baptist chapel in Protaton (1525-1526), the ones in the St. Blasios

church in the Great Lavra (1528-1529) and in chapels, in the cells of Flaskas in Karies and of

Fakinos close to the Pantokrator monastery. The style of these painters is characterized by a

purity of line and bright colours, and their work is rightfully linked to the influence of Ohrid

and its painting heritage from the 15th century.7

During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1522-1560) there were favourable

conditions for cultural and economic growth of subjected populations. It is not a coincidence

that from the third decade of the 16th century across continental Greece and Mount Athos

monasteries and churches went through renovations, temples, chapels and refectories were

decorated with frescoes. Donors were both rulers of Moldowallachia and local clergymen who

commissioned almost without exception the repainting of existing mural ensembles in the

landmark cult centers of Mount Athos and in Thessaly to the artistic teams of the Cretan

painters Theophanes Stelitzas-Batas and Dzordzis. It is through them that during the second

and third quarters of the 16th century, mural painting would have its second prosperous period

on Mount Athos8. This formally called Cretan school is believed to have imported “Western”

or “Venetian” influences to the Athonite monumental painting, which, translated through the

filter of the peculiar Orthodoxy of Crete, spread to the northernmost peninsula of Halkidiki9.

However, researchers often tend to forget that its representatives were only born on this

Cycladic island, and they became truly accomplished as painters in Meteora or in the Holy

Mountain. I believe that those accused of being influenced by the realistic art of the West, a

place of a different faith, were simply more gifted painters. Moreover, they did not share

many common features with painters working on Crete, such as Andreas Ritsos (+ about

1492), Andreas Pavias (+ about 1504), Nikolaos Zaphouris (+ about 1507), together with their

successors from the 17th c. (Emmanuel Dzanes Bounialis (1610-1690), Theodoros Poulakis

(1622-1692) etc. 10 The latter were the true representatives of the Cretan School, as influenced

by the Italian masters, such as Raphael, M. Raimondi and Bellini. In this sense I believe it is

more accurate to speak about Cretan painters on Mount Athos, rather than about the presence

of a Cretan school in the artistic processes there. In reality, the search for Western/ European

influences in church art on the Balkans during the first half of the 18th century, as well as the

correlation between renaissance and post-renaissance processes and a completely different

type of culture, is rather a compensatory act in the minds of contemporary researchers, caused

more by modern yearnings for geopolitical belonging and the complex of the Anatolian

stigmatization, than it is an act based on real observations on the medieval view of the

Orthodox creator, who probably felt at ease with their visual world of two-dimensional

mysticism and theatrical conditionality. On the hand, when speaking of influences, the

influencing side should be interested as well, i.e. the West should have been interested in its

7 Ibidem. 8 Βοκοτόπουλος, Π. Μνημειακή ζωγραφική. – In: Θησαυροί του Αγίου Όρους, Β΄ εκδ., Θεσσαλονίκη, 1997, σ. 38. 9 Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Ο κρητικός ζωγράφος Θεοφάνης. Η τελευταία φάση της τέχνης του στις τοιχογραφίες της

Ιεράς Μονής Σταυρονικήτα, Άγιον Όρος, 1986. 10 About the Cretan masters see Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Έλληνες ζωγράφοι μετά την Άλωση. τ. Α΄, Αθήνα, 1987, σ. 79-

94.

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influence over the Christian East. Such influence, however, is not documented, and the

borrowings or rather the occasional appearance of certain patterns, gestures, and compositions

is not enough evidence for the existence of influence.

2. St. Menas the Egyptian, by Theophanes Strelitsas-Bathas, Katholikon of the Stavronikita monastery, Mount Athos, 16th century.

6

Theophanes arrived in Mount Athos already an established master, which is why he

was commissioned to paint the katholikon of the Great Lavra (1534-1535), where he became

a monk and lived with his two sons until 1543 (ill. 2). Ten years later, together with his

successor Simeon, he decorated the main church, the refectory and one of the chapels of the

Stavronikita monastery (1545-1546); he is believed to have painted some of the frescoes in

the Southern chapel of the katholikon in the Pantokrator monastery, which statement should

be taken with some grain of salt since the monument was demolished in the mid 19th century.

Two mural ensembles from the same period also have to be included in this overview: the

katholikon of the Koutloumousiou monastery (1539-1540) and the small trikonchal Church of

Molibdoecclesia in the Hilandar cell The Dormition of the Virgin Mary by Karies (1541). The

inscriptions on the two monuments mentioned the name of the painter and monk Makarios,

who was part of the same artistic movement and by no means a lesser painter than

Theophanes. It is possible that the same Makarios assisted the Cretan painter in the work on

the refectory of the Lavra or vice versa – that Theophanes worked with him in

Koutloumousiou or Karies. The other representative of Cretan artists, Dzordzis, believed to be

Theophanes’ apprentice, belonged to the same powerful artistic trend. According to written

data this Cretan started to work on Athos, painting the katholikon of the Dionysiou Monastery

(1546-1547), but in recent years this assumption has been disproved because there we can

notice more than one hand and higher professionalism, which is not typical for the artist’s

later work11. After lengthy work in Thessaly and Meteora, Dzordzis was also invited in the

Holy Mountain with his assistants in order to decorate the Docheiariou Monastery (1567-

1568) (ill. 3). The reorganization and new painting of the katholikon of the Dionysiou

Monastery during the second half of the 16th century was funded by the Moldovian prince

Ioan-Peter, and later on the Voevode Alexander and his wife Roksandra built nowadays’ main

church of the Docheiariou Monastery and paid for its painting.

11 Τουτός, Ν., Γ. Φουστέρης, Op. cit., σ. 22.

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3. Archangel Gabriel, by Tzortzis, katholikon of Docheiariou monastery,

Mount Athos, 16th century.

Also worth noting from the 16th century in Athos are: the katholikon of the Iviron

Monastery, where there is an image of the painter Marko with a halo, standing among the

donors, as well as the frescoes in the refectory of the Philotheou Monastery (1561-1574). The

same master has worked on both, but as part of a team. The stylistics of the two ensembles is

very similar to the one of the Cretans Theophanes and Dzordzis. Other frescoes important for

the development of late medieval art, despite their poor state, are the ones in the katholikon of

the Simonopetra Monastery, which are also influenced by the art of the two Cretan painters.

The name of the painter Antonios is also well-known. He signed the old katholikon in the

Xenophontos monastery (1544), but the decoration of the St. John the Apostle chapel in the

Vatopediou cell of St. Procopius (1536-1537) and the St. George Chapel in the St. Paul

Monastery (1552-1555) are attributed to him to an extent. This painter borrowed certain

elements of the esthetic of the Cretans, aliens in Athos, but he was clearly not a student of

Theophanes’.

It should be noted that the so-called "Northern Greek" school or "school of Thebes"12

is represented here by a single monument. These are the frescoes of the chapel St. Nicholas of

12 Αχειμάστου-Ποταμιάνου, Μ. Η μονή Φιλανθρωπινών και η πρώτη φάση της βυζαντινής ζωγραφικής, Αθήναι, 1983, etc.

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the katholikon of the Great Lavra (1559-1560), which are unique because they are the last and

only signed work of Frangos Katelanos of Thebes (ill. 4).

4. St. Ermolaos Anargyros, by Frangos Katelanos, St. Nickolas chapel at the katholikon of

the Great Lavra, Mount Athos, 16th century.

Only the frescoes in the narthex of the old central church in Xenophontos, signed by a

certain painter Theophanes, a monk in 1563, cannot be related to the major workshops, which

operated in Mount Athos at the time: the ones of Theophanes the Cretan, Makarios, Dzordzis,

Antonios or Frangos Katelanos. The figures on those frescoes are interesting but of poorer

quality of execution.

It is not a sheer coincidence that the date of the last significant monument of

monumental painting on the Holy Mountain – the katholikon of the Docheiariou Monastery

(1567-1568) – coincides with date of the confiscation of Athonite convents by Sultan Selim

II. Deprived of this type of income, as well as of the tangible support of the Voevodes beyond

the Danube, the Athonite monasteries were only in a position to complete the already started

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endeavours or undertake small-scale renovation works. Nevertheless, the Docheiariou

Monastery maintained the monastic painting workshop, which is why only one of the twelve

monuments from the first half of the 17th century isn’t work of its representatives. The main

master of this local artistic workshop is the monk Daniel, who was inspired by the works of

the Cretan Dzordzis but was no student of his. In 1602-1603 Daniel painted the refectory of

the Dionisiou Monastery, and in 1607-1608, assisted by Merkourios, he decorated the St. John

the Apostle chapel, and after working on the St. George chapel in the same monastery, he

retired from there and decorated with frescoes the Sts. Anargyroi chapel in the Monoxylites.

His student the monk Merkourios continued working on the frescoes of chapels and other

halls of the Dionysiou Monastery but since he had good reputation and a fine taste for the

beautiful, he was commissioned to paint the phiale of the Great Lavra in 1634-1635. The

Vatopedi’s authorities also invited Merkourios and his apprentices soon, which is visible in

the paintings of the St George cell in Provata from 1634-1635. The only exception to the

ubiquitous art of the painter-monks from Dionysiou was the non-Greek monastery of

Hilandar, where the Serbian monk Georgi Mitrophanovich13 was invited to paint the refectory

in 1622.

Almost all Athonite monasteries have icons, painted by representatives of the tradition

from Crete. The most remarkable examples of their craftsmanship are the icons of the royal

and apostle rows painted by Theophanes and his son on the altar screens of the Lavra, Iviron,

Stavronikita, Pantokrator and Grigoriou. Other Cretans who worked on icons in Mount Athos

were: Euphrosinos (active in 1542) – Dionysiou14; Michael Damaskinos (c. 1535 – 1592/93) –

Stavronikita15; Konstantinos Paleokapas (active in 1635-1640) – Karakalou16; Ioannes Apakas

(active at the end of the 16th – beg. of the 17th c.) – Great Lavra17 etc.18 Cretan icons, however,

were costly and appeared rarely in other parts of the Balkans, especially if there was no

Greek-speaking population in those areas.

In modern-day Greece Mount Athos is the greatest consumer of religious art from the

Ottoman period. Still, despite the relatively favourable living conditions for Christians in the

Ottoman capital, the existence of an artistic centre in the 16th century there remains doubtful.

The Greek researcher Pallas believes that because the artist Dzordzis was mentioned, there

were art workshops in Constantinople, which produced icons for the needs of Christians in the

Empire, but we do not have any evidence for that today.

The 16th century was a period of prosperity for mural painting in continental Greece as

well. Apart from Theophanes Strelitzas or Batas, who worked in Meteora and Mount Athos,

the aforementioned Frangos Katelanos from Thebes worked during that century, painting

temples in Epirus, Thessaly and Macedonia. Another important painter of the period was the

priest Onoufrios who painted murals in nowadays’ central Albania, Castoria, Valsh, Shelcan,

13 Kajmakovic, Z. Georgije Mitrofanovic, Sarajevo, 1977 и др. 14 Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Έλληνες ζωγράφοι..., τ. Α΄, σ. 289. 15Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Έλληνες ζωγράφοι..., τ. Α΄, σ. 241-253. 16 Χατζηδάκης, Μ., Ευ. Δρακοπούλου, Έλληνες ζωγράφοι..., τ. Β΄, σ. 266-267. 17 Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Έλληνες ζωγράφοι..., τ. Α΄, σ. 175-176. 18 Icons of Cretan Art: From Chandax to Moscow and St. Petersburg (in Greek), Ηράκλειο, 1979.

10

Berat, Prilep (1547-1554), etc.19 After the Ottomans’ conquest of Cyprus in 1571, Onoufrios

of Cyprus (1594-1615)20 painted in the lands of what is now Southern Albania. The influence

of Cypriot icon-painting art from this period is evident in the emulation of metal fittings in

painting. However, the migration of artists from Cyprus to other parts of the Balkans was not

a widespread but rather an isolated phenomenon. They usually preferred to work in Palestine

or the Middle East21.

Between 1570 and the end of the 17th century in Epirus, Western Macedonia and the

Western mainland part of Greece family teams of painters appeared originating from the

village of Linotopi. Their pieces were signed only by their first names. Their aesthetic is

naïve, their colors – vivid, and their typical multifigured compositions are almost miniature22.

In this last trait they reminiscent many of the mural monuments in Romania, but that does not

mean there is a direct link between the two. Linotopi’ masters didn’t even work on Mount

Athos23. The "Garden of the Virgin" did not host representatives of the Castoria school, nor

any Cypriot artists.

Despite the bleak picture of decay in Christian Orthodox art on the Balkans, it must be

acknowledged that, in the period between the 13th and the 15th centuries, the inscriptions in all

church frescoes which survive in Bulgaria and have been dated with some confidence are in

Palaeobulgarian, with insignificant additions of texts in Greek on the scrolls held by Saints24.

In the 15th century in particular, churches were decorated with frescoes of high quality and

with inscriptions in Palaeobulgarian, despite the loss of political and religious independence25.

Only at the end of the 16th century did Greek inscriptions make their appearance in some

churches in Bulgarian territories (St Steven’s church from 1599 in Nessebar), but over the

next century or so, they began to increase26.

Icon-painters started to sign their works relatively late, but their signatures could serve

as interesting grounds for making some observations. The names of three fifteenth-century

19 Χατζηδάκης, Μ., Ευ. Δρακοπούλου, Έλληνες ζωγράφοι μετά την Άλωση. Β΄, Αθήνα, 1997, 256-258. 20 Βοκοτόπουλος, Π. Η θρησκευτική ζωγραφική στην Αλβανία από τον 10ο έως τον 19ο αιώνα. – In: Εικόνες από τις Ορθόδοξες κοινότητες της Αλβανίας, Θεσσαλονίκη, 2006, σ. 20. 21 Мутафов, Е. Страници от хаджийския дневник: някои наблюдения върху православното християнско изкуство в Йерусалим и връзките му с балканската традиция през османския период. – В: Проблеми на

изкуството, 4/2012, с. 9-10. 22 Βοκοτόπουλος, Π. Η θρησκευτική…, с. 21. 23 Moutafov, E. Живописта на Атон през призмата на новите научни изследвания. Размисли. – In: Art

Studies Quarterly, vol. 1, Sofia, 2012, с. 10 24 Бакалова, Е. Стенописни надписи…, с. 187. 25 Those are the churches of the Virgin Mary of Vitosha, St Theodor, Sts Apostles Peter and Paul, St George, St

Archangel Michael, Holy Archangels, Mother of God at Mislovshtitsa, and St John the Theologian at Poganovo,

which are in the area of Southwestern Bulgarian epigraphic monumental artifacts influenced by the Ohrid

archiepiscopate in the fifteenth century. See Андреев, Х. Новоразкрити надписи от 1475/1476 година в

олтарното пространство на църквата в Драгалевския манастир. – В: Старобългаристика XXXI (2007),

кн. 4, C., p. 82. 26 Ibid.

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artists are known in present-day Bulgaria, signed in Bulgarian in the monastery of St

Demetrios in Boboshevo (ill. 5): Neophit and his sons Dimitar and Bogdan27.

5. Detail of a mural decoration with cryptograms from the church of St. Demetrios at

Boboshevo village, Bulgaria, 15th century.

Another one is the monk Marko from Dubrovnik28; i.e. we do not have any signed

piece by a Greek painter. Over the next century the number of painters who signed their

works rose to seven. Four of them, or more than a half, are Bulgarians: Nedelko from

Lovetch29, Pimen Zographski30 and his teacher Thoma from Sofia31, but the other two are

Greek clergymen: Arsenios, bishop of Plovdiv,32 and hieromonk Pachomios (ill. 6)33.

27 Божков, А. Краят на неизживяното българско кватроченто. – В: Изкуство, 1967, кн. 1, с. 35, бел. 10;

Суботиќ, Г. Охридската сликарска школа од ХV век. Охрид, 1980, с. 134-141; Машниќ, М. Прилози за

три малку познати споменици во Кичевско-бродскиот краj од поствизантискиот период. – В: Културно

наследство, 16, Скопjе, 1993, с. 96-101.

28 Димитров, Б. Петър Богдан Бакшев. Български политик и историк от ХVII в. С, 1985, с. 177;

Документи за католическата дейност в България през ХVII в. С., 1993, с. 193. 29 Паскалева, К. Икони от България, С., 1981, № 21; Божков, А. Българската икона, С., 1984, ил. 114.

30 Пандурски, В. Куриловският манастир. С., 1975; Геров, Г. Аргументи за датировката и атрибуцията на

няколко икони от Зографския манастир. – В: Светогорска обител Зограф, т. І, С., 1995, с. 131-142;

Гергова, И. Още веднъж за св. Пимен Зографски. – В: Българският ХVII в. (под печат); Поповска-

Коробар, В. Кон атрибуциата на живописот во црквата на Слимничкиот манастир. – В: Зборник. Нова

сер. бр. 2, Скопjе, 1996, с. 213-237; Поповска-Коробар, В. Към атрибуцията на живописта в Слимничкия

манастир и нейните паралели в някои църкви в България. – В: Проблеми на изкуството, кн. 2, 1997, с. 3-

9; Гергова, И. Резбата в ателието на Пимен Зографски. – В: Проблеми на изкуството, кн. 2, 2003, с. 23-32

и др.

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6. St. George, by hieromonk Pachomios, National Art Gallery, Sofia, 16th century.

31 Динеков, П. Житието на Пимен Зографски. – В: Известия на Института за българска литература,

кн. 2, 1954, с. 233-248 и др. 32 Герлах, С. Дневник на едно пътуване до Османската порта в Цариград. С, 1976, с. 259.

33 Ждраков, З. Влиянието на критската школа върху българската живопис през ХVI в., сб. Българският

ХVI в., С, 1996, с. 569.

13

7. Roof mural decoration of the Sts Theodor Stratelates and Theodor Teron’ church in

Dobarsko village, Bulgaria, 1614.

Another Greek signature is that of Constantine34, who made icons in Nessebar and was

certainly Greek as well. On the basis of such scanty data, we can tentatively deduce that, a

century after the Ottoman conquest, the highest-ranking clergy in Bulgarian territories had

been replaced by Greeks, some of the monks were of Greek origin as well, or began to write

in Greek, and that happened mostly in places with compact Greek populations like Plovdiv

and the Black Sea coast. Nevertheless, the workshop of Pimen Zographski became active in

Sofia and its vicinity, producing high-quality wall-paintings for the monastery of St John of

Rila in Kurilo in 1596; for the church of St Theodor Teron and St Theodor Stratelates in the

village of Dobarsko in 1614 (ill. 7); and for the monastery of the village of Seslavtsi in 1615-

1616; at the beginning of the following century, it produced works within the present borders

of FYROM and in the Zographou monastery on M. Athos. Frescoes from 16th to 17th century

survived as well in the Ilientsi Monastery, near Sofia (ill. 8).

34 Паскалева, К. Икони от България, № 32-34; Божков, А. Българската икона, ил. 95; Ждраков, З. Op. cit.,

с. 566

14

8. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, Ilientsi, near Sofia, 16-17th century.

From the seventeenth century, data are available for more or less the same number of

artists who signed their names. There are eight of them. The following are certainly Greek:

hieromonk Kesarios (ill. 9) and Jakovos Daronas35, who painted icons for the Greeks in

Nessebar.

35 Тотева, П., С. Москова, 24 икони от Южна България. С. 1987., с. 7-8, ил. 4-5; Паскалева, К. 24 икони

от Криптата. С., 1987, с. 9, ил. 10-11; Москова, С. Осем несебърски икони от Държавната художествена

галерия - Пловдив – В: Проблеми на изкуството, 1997, 2, с. 46-52 и др.

15

9. Virgin Hodegetria with Christ, by hieromonk Kesarios,

National Art Gallery, Sofia, 17th century.

A cryptograph of the monk Lephteris has recently been found in Arbanassi36, where masters

from today’s Albania were called in as well. Five painters, however, are doubtless of

Bulgarian origin: Joan from Tsivinodola37, Joan38, Joan Komnov39 and the teachers Nedelko40

36 Мутафов, Е. Новооткрит криптограф от църквата на Арбанашкия манастир „Успение Богородично”. –

В: Etropolskata knizhovna shkola i balgarskiat 17ti vek, Sofia, 2011, 281-285 37 Акрабова-Жандова, И. Икони в Софийския археологически музей, № ХV, с. 66; Гергова, И. Зограф Йоан

от Чивинодола. – В: Проблеми на изкуството, кн. 2, 1997, с. 31-40

16

and Nedio41. Judging by frescoes in Bulgarian territories, Greek and Bulgarian inscriptions on

them were almost equal in number in the 17th century42. This is due to the fact that the church

leadership of Constantinople was consolidated by the economically and politically powerful

Phanariot community which was fostered by the Patriarchate43. It is important to note that,

during the preparation of the mural programs for the temples in Bulgarian lands, they used a

Greek-language painter’s manual of the type of the First Jerusalem Manuscript, or of the so-

called hermeneia of the priest Daniel. In my view, the prototype of this text must have been

created in Crete no later than the end of the 16th century44. There are plenty of unsigned icons

with aesthetics which would most probably identify them as belonging to Greek workshops as

well. Also interesting noting is that the Russian “лицевые подлинники” appeared around the

same time, which is evidence for a common need of established models across the Orthodox

world, regardless of the political situation of the lands where the specific monuments were

located. Until then there was no need for written manuals since the tradition was alive and art

was passed on from teacher to student and by imitation from good models. This does not

mean that painters did not make preparatory sketches or did not collect them.

The Romanian principalities, vassals to the Sublime Porte, used exclusively

Palaeobulgarian in the inscriptions on frescoes and icons from the beginning of the 17th

century. As with other Balkan nations, Romanians acquired a translation of the Bible in their

native language thanks to the Protestants45. It was only in 1640 that the first work in

Romanian was printed, but it was also translated from Church Slavonic46. This fact, however,

is not due to Protestants in Transylvania only, but to the increased Greek presence north of the

Danube after the late 16th century. Numerous Greek traders, councillors and creditors settled

in those relatively free territories, and their numbers increased steadily over the next century.

At the time many clergymen of Greek origin or education settled in the Romanian states, and

the influence of Mount Athos over local monasteries grew, which lead to “a Hellenization of

the Romanian Church and to the Greek language replacing the Slavic ones during the

38 Гергова, И. Врачанската иконопис от ХVII в. – В: Изкуство, кн. 9-10, 1990, с. 12, ил. на с. 11;

Тарашоева, В., В. Борисов, Експозицията във Възнесенската църква – храм-паметник “Св. Софроний, еп.

Врачански” във Враца. – В: ИМСБ, т. 17, С, 1991, с. 185, ил. 9.

39 Машниќ, М. Црквата Света Петка во Селник и неjзините паралели со сликарството на Алинскиот

манастир Свети Спас. – В: Културно наследство, 17-18, Скопjе, 1994, с. 102-111.

40 Мутафчиев, П. Из нашите старопланински манастири, Избрани произведения. т. ІІ, С., 1975, с. 373,

374; Пандурски, В. Манастирската стенна живопис в Карлуково. С., 2002, с. 193.

41 Гергова, И. Църквата на арбанашкия манастир Успение Богородично. – В: Проблеми на изкуството,

кн. 1, 1999, с. 10-12, ill. on p. 10, 11.

42 Корпус на стенописите от XVII в. в България. Под ред. на Б. Пенкова и Ц. Кунева, С., 2012. 43 Jorga, N. Byzance après Byzance. Continuation de l’ “Histoire de la vie byzance”. Institut d’Études

Byzantines, Bucharest, 1935, 220-237, etc. 44 Мутафов, Е. Страници от хаджийския дневник: някои наблюдения върху православното християнско

изкуство в Йерусалим и връзките му с балканската традиция през османския период. – В: Проблеми на

изкуството, 4/2012, с. 9-10. 45 История на Османската империя. Ред. Р. Мантран, С., 1999, с. 322. 46 Ibidem, с. 323.

17

liturgy”47. Furthermore, from that period onwards “Greek practically replaced Church

Slavonic and became the official language of the Church and rulers” 48. These are parallel

processes observed also in Bulgarian lands – in the 17th century Bulgarian and Greek

inscriptions in churches were equal in terms of quantity, while during the next century the

ones in Greek predominated, when in Moldavia and Wallachia the so-called “Phanariot

period” began49. These tendencies were inspired by the Constantinople Patriarchate (ill. 10)

and were aimed mostly at weakening the Bulgarian element in local churches within the

Ottoman Empire, and not so much at limiting the Russian influence, which is related to a

significant political and financial support from the Ecumenical Throne.

10. View to the entrance of the main church of the Ecumenical Patriarchate today, Istanbul.

47 Ibidem, с. 326. 48 Sugar, P. Η Νοτιοανατολική Ευρώπη κάτω από Οθωμανική κυριαρχία (1354-1804). τ. Β΄, Αθήνα, 1994, σ. 36. 49 История на Османската империя, с. 325.

18

The same happened a century later on a smaller scale in Serbian lands, since the Patriarchate

of Peć existed until 176650. The Cyrillic inscriptions on works of church art were always

predominant there; Fener treated the Serbs with respect or certain lack of interest, which is

why influences from the Habsburgs, Russia and Ukraine extended more easily. Last but not

least, the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate was never afraid of a “Bulgarisation” of the Serbian

Church for obvious historic reasons. Thus Serbia is a more particular example of the

development of Balkan culture during the Ottoman period.

We can only regret that despite the rising importance of Mount Athos in the 16th-17th

centuries in Albanian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Romanian lands there were no masters of the

class of Theophanes the Cretan and Frangos Katelanos. This made the Holy Mountain a

centre for the artistic life of the time, and in the periphery painters of more modest talent

worked, following unconsciously the same developments and models. We cannot speak of

Athonite influence on Balkan painting in the 16th century. There was art on Mount Athos, but

there was no Athonite art.

Echoes of the so-called Macedonian or Ohrid art school of the second half of the

fifteenth century are discovered by Greek researchers in Dorohoi (1522) and Hirlau (1530).

Relatively small is the number of Greek masters who worked in the Romanian lands as

George from Trikala (+ 1530), Nikolaos of Crete, Andrew, Mark, Mina Stamatelos Kotronas

from Zakynthos (1554). Some of them, however, are certainly koutsovlachoi/ arumani.

Assumed, but rather far-fetched, is that in Moldovitsa (1557) also worked priest Onoufrios

from Neokastro51.

Of course there are some difficult-to-explain parallels in the choice of iconographic

themes in a completely different linguistic and cultural environment. An example is the

appearance of the scene with “The request of Joseph of Arimathea” (ill. 11) in the frescoes of

the main church in the Gyromeri Monastery, Thesprotia in Epirus (1577-1590)52 and even

more in some Romanian monuments from the 16th century, such as the St. George’s church in

Hirlau53, Popauti54, the Dobrovat Monastery55, and Vatra Moldovitei56.

50 История на Османската империя, с. 354. 51 Χατζηδάκης, Μ. Έλληνες ζωγράφοι..., τ. Α΄, σ. 130. 52 Τσιούρης, Ι. Ο τοιχογραφικός διάκοσμος του καθολικού της Μονής Γηρομερίου Θεσπρωτίας (1577-1590).

Συμβολή στη μελέτη της εντοίχιας θρησκευτικής ζωγραφικής του 16ου αιώνα στην Ήπειρο. Αθήνα, 2011, σ. 82. 53 Stefanescu, I. L’ art Byzantin et l’ art Lombard en Transylvanie. Peintures murales de valachie et de Moldavie,

Paris, 1938, ill. XXXII.1. 54 Henry, P. Les églises de la Moldavie du Nord, Des origines à la fin du XVIe siècle. Architecture et peinture. Album. Monument de l’art Byzantine VI, Paris, 1930, ill. XXXVI.2. 55 Stefanescu, I. Op. cit., ill. XLVIII.1. 56 Henry, P. Op. cit., ill. XXIV.1.

19

11. The Request of Joseph of Arimathea, Gyromeri monastery,

Thesprotia, Greece, 16th century.

The scene appeared already in the Paleologian period57 but in art from the 15th century it

existed only in Greek and Romanian monuments. In this particular case there is a link

between the monastery in Epirus and the trans-Danubian principalities: a decree by Patriarch

Metrophanes III from 1568 mentioned as donator Mr. Axiotis, who was born in Epirus and

was the first agas of Ungro-Wallachia between 10.12.1567 and 23.05.156858. It is based on

his initiative that in the same year the prince of Wallachia Petru the Younger granted a yearly

support to the Gyromeri Monastery in the amount of 1000 aspras59. In the 17th century the

interest of Romanian rulers in this Greek monastery increased60. It is unclear, however, how

the donations became borrowed ideas for iconographic themes and what was the direction of

influence: whether art in Greek lands influenced the Romanian one, or vice versa – old

iconographic schemes remained on the periphery of the former Slavic and Byzantine

community and then transformed returned back to the lands with a Greek-speaking

population. Another issue is the language of the inscriptions in these scenes, since if we

57 Millet, G. Monuments de l’ Athos. I les peintures, Paris, 1927, Ill. 27.1; Millet, G. Recherches sur l’iconographie de l’Evangelie au XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles, Paris, 1960, p. 465-466, ill. 490. 58 Nasturel, P. Le Mont Athos et les Roumens. – In: Orientalia Christiana Analecta 227/ Roma, 1986, p. 228, etc. 59 Τσιούρης, Ι. Op. cit., с. 18. 60 Βρανούσης, Λ. Μονή Γηρομερίου. – In: Θρησκευτική και ηθική εγκυκλοπαίδεια, τ. Δ΄ (1964), σ. 500.

20

assume that the direction was from Paleologian art, via Epirus to Romania, then why weren’t

those inscriptions preserved in Greek in the 16th century? On the other hand it is important to

specify who the carrier of these borrowings was: painters, monks, donors, or some

iconographic bilingual manuals that we are not familiar with. There is no evidence as to the

presence of arumani in Thesprotia, there were concentrated in Thessaly and Epirus. A clear

proof for the delegation of powers from Ottoman authorities to Wallachian rulers regarding

the population south of the Danube was an edict of Suleiman the Magnificent from 1543. It

stipulated that Radu Pajsie (1535-1545) had to take care of the Rila Monastery, protect the

rights of the Rila monks and do so as vassal of the Sultan but also as chieftain of these lands61.

It is clear that Wallachian rulers had extensive rights in the territories south of the Danube,

and their status was similar to the one of Ottoman dignitaries. What is more, they also had the

possibility to make use of this status in order to help the local population. Their rights,

however, did not lead to artistic influences in the biggest Bulgarian monastery, which, in its

turn, is a sign for certain selectivity despite the lack of a language barrier.

One thing is certain though: in spite of the Ottomans’ presence on the Balkans,

inscriptions on frescoes in Orthodox churches continued to be the same in the 16th century as

the ones during the two previous centuries. This means that the ethnic profile of painters,

clergy, and users of this art remained the same. A century later, however, a hellenization

process began with varying intensity and two forms of manifestation – by the direct use of

Greek and manuals in Greek or by encouraging the use of the local language, for instance in

the monuments in Romania from the 17th century. In this we can agree with Helen Evans’

insight that the year 1557, when the term “Byzantium”62 appeared in research, was in fact an

important date for the Christian East because it marked the end of the medieval Orthodox

tradition and its transition into the pre-modern period. In the art and culture of the peoples

subjected to the Sultan this period started in the next century to pave the way for the new

Balkan national differentiation during the 1th and the 19th centuries. Behind their apparent

conservatism the inscriptions on frescoes also reflected the stages of this process.

As a Bulgarian scholar I am expected to write about the language of the inscriptions in

Romanian monuments from the 16th century, which was definitely not the Russian version of

Church Slavonic from the 18th century. It appeared on the Balkans in the 18th century through

old printed books, published in Russia. Since the 1990s Bulgarian researchers have not been

writing about a “language” when describing manuscripts or reading epigraphics so as to avoid

misunderstanding. Such monuments exist on the territories of Ukraine, Serbia etc. In the case

of Romania, according to the established practice (A. A. Turilov’s most recent observations63)

it should be noted that the inscriptions on frescoes from the 16th century were written in the

“Middle Bulgarian spelling” because the nasal sounds were in their etymological places, in

most case the “er”-s were also written in their etymological places, this is proven by

61 For a translation of this document see: Архимандрит Кирил Рилски, Кратки спомени из миналия ми

живот 1861–1931, С., 1931, 146-147. 62 Evans, H. C. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) – In: Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004, p. 15. 63 Турилов, А. Критерии определения славяно-молдавских рукописей ХV–ХVІ вв. – В: Хризограф. Кн. 2.

Москва, 2005, 139–168.

21

morphological features etc. The spelling of the Slavic language is Middle Bulgarian, because

it is used like this after the reform of Patriarch Euthymios. Before that often there had been

inconsistencies in spelling. However, this does not make the monuments in Moldowallachia

Bulgarian just as the inscriptions in Greek appearing in Bulgarian lands do not make

automatically our churches Greek. Painters from the Paleologian period had to be at least

bilingual in order to serve communities with different mother tongues, use written sources in

Slavonic and Greek, and speak the language of the administration in the territories they

crossed. Until the end of the 18th century the main distinctive feature on the Balkans was

religion, and not nationality or language.

22

Summary

This text tries to draw a general view of the development of the Christian Orthodox art

in the 16th and 17th centuries. The author represents in brief the main monuments and artists

during the above period on the Balkans as well as the interactions between different cultures

in historical context. Special interest is given to the art appeared on Mount Athos and the role

of Patriarchate of Constantinople as a political and spiritual factor in the Ottoman empire and

their influence in the Trans-Danubian principalities. Most of the existing bibliography on this

subject is presented and analyzed. In his critical reading of the available publication E.

Moutafov suggests for instance that it is more accurate to speak about Cretan painters on

Mount Athos, rather than about the presence of a Cretan school in the artistic processes there.

On the hand, when speaking of Western/ European influences, he believes that the influencing

side should be interested as well, i.e. the West should have been interested in its influence

over the Christian East, which is not documented. It is important to note the observation made

here, that during the preparation of the mural programs for the temples in Bulgarian lands, the

artists used a Greek-language painter’s manual of the type of the First Jerusalem Manuscript,

or of the so-called hermeneia of the priest Daniel. Also interesting noting is that the Russian

“лицевые подлинники” appeared around the same time, which is evidence for a common

need of established models across the Orthodox world, regardless of the political situation of

the lands where the specific monuments were located. Until then for the author there was no

need for written manuals since the tradition was alive and art was passed on from teacher to

student and by imitation from good models. This does not mean that painters did not make

preparatory sketches (anthivola) or did not collect them. One thing is certain though: in spite

of the Ottomans’ presence on the Balkans, inscriptions on frescoes in Orthodox churches

continued to be the same in the 16th century as the ones during the two previous centuries.

This means for Moutafov that the ethnic profile of painters, clergy, and users of this art

remained the same. A century later, however, a hellenization process began with varying

intensity and two forms of manifestation – by the direct use of Greek and manuals in Greek or

by encouraging the use of the local language, for instance in the monuments in Romania from

the 17th century. In this the author agrees with Helen Evans’ insight that the year 1557, when

the term “Byzantium” appeared in research, was in fact an important date for the Christian

East because it marked the end of the medieval Orthodox tradition and its transition into the

pre-modern period.